I happened to catch Ms Moran on the Daily Politics. As someone who taught in two countries (Canada and West Germany) where students wear more or less what they want) I just cannot understand this fascination we appear to have with school uniform. What is important to me, and always has been, is NOT what someone looks like; but what is going on between their ears.

@ John Marriott “Come on, Layla, why not tackle something REALLY important?” It may be of interest that UK Government school uniform policy (affects only England) is laid down in ‘Notes of Guidance’ 2013 – signed off by a certain David Laws. Said former Minister passed the buck to the Governors of each individual school.

Gov.uk htt://www.gov.uk/government, School_Uniform_Guidance.pdf “It is for the governing body of a school to decide whether there should be a school uniform policy and if so what that should be. This flows from the duties placed upon all governing bodies by statute to ensure that school policies promote good behaviour and discipline amongst the ……” Not really neo-liberalism – more like Liberal Imperialism.

Now Layla (who I like) needs to get a private members bill through – or individual conversations with 25,000 sets of maintained school governors. She’s going to be busy. She (like others) has been snookered by Laws D.A. (St George’s Weybridge and Kings College, Cambridge).

Confession : when I was a head (last century, shock horror !!) we had simple uniform of jumper and choice of trousers or skirt (regardless of gender). The advantage was cost saving for parents/avoidance of competitive expensive fashion.Outcome ? Boys always chose trousers – most girls preferred skirts in summer, trousers in winter – no pressure. Molehills/mountains comes to mind. We had more important things to focus on.

Talking of winter/ mountains, v. proud of ex-pupil, now County Councillor (Labour). Organised support/rescue isolated households from twelve feet snow drifts in High Pennines last week. She mostly wears trousers and was on national TV.

@Daivd Raw Confession : when I was a head (last century, shock horror !!) we had simple uniform of jumper and choice of trousers or skirt (regardless of gender).

The (state) school my children attend have a similar policy.
I think the issue isn’t so much state schools – although I’m sure there are some that are very particular about uniform, but the private sector where the government guidance doesn’t apply…

Roland: nothing new here. If local ‘flowers bloom’ in a way that some of our “liberal” members disapprove of, out comes the central Government herbicide of bans and control. And i have no time for the “Scotland does it” argument. Scotland does a lot of things (often with English subsidy) that it does not follow that others should copy.

Our obsession with weed, trans and now this is making Vince’s job of repositioning us as serious contenders post-Farron more difficult than it already is and easier for our opponents to portray us as flaky and marginal .

@ David “And i have no time for the “Scotland does it” argument. Scotland does a lot of things (often with English subsidy) that it does not follow that others should copy.”

As a Yorkshireman now very happily living in Scotland, can I ask you to exercise just a little bit of empathy and to ponder on how that reads if you were living on my side of the border ? It comes across as the worst sort of immature patronising ‘superiority’ guaranteed to inflame bad feelings in what is supposed to be a United Kingdom.

Is it not a matter of record that additional public subsidy to Scotland from the UK Exchequer enables the government there to adopt policies that cannot be afforded in England? And that the Government there advocates and adopts other (non-financial) policies, which are then touted for ‘federal’ adoption a manner deliberately intended to portray England as ‘backward’ for not copying? Which doesn’t make English people feel exactly great, in what is supposed to be a United Kingdom.

In a week where the big education story is unregistered schools, to have the LibDems talking on what is largely an irrelevance (and as David Raw indicates only really applies to state schools in England), shows just how out of touch the Libdems are. [Mind you why the daily politics show decided to run this education topic rather than unregistered schools, does raise questions about decision making at the BBC.]

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